Hi John, you wrote:
RC> I see it as two disjuncts:
>
>
1. Paul goes to the water fountain;
>
>
2. Wanda goes to the water fountain;
There is no AND and no OR in either
sentence. The two sentences are two separate observations made by a
system S. Lets call them
S0
1. Paul goes to the water fountain;
S1
2. Wanda goes to the water fountain;
I have not yet said whether they went
together, separately, yesterday, accompanied or not. The two factual sentences
S0 and S1 each stand alone. My sensors in S have detected Paul at the
water fountain, and Wanda at the water fountain, but I have not other
information as to when, where, other who, other what or why. I have not
yet made the two statements S0 and S1 a conjunct or a disjuncts. As you
describe later in your email, there is no other information about them.
RC> I don't think that Paul and Wanda have anything else going...
In any case, none of these paraphrases used the word
'or'.
John
Yes, but all those paraphrases came from your subjective experience,
imagination and interpretation of the two statements S0 and S1.
HERE IS THE IMPORTANT PART:
Given two statements detected by the
sensors, there is absolutely no reason to choose AND over OR as the
interpretation.
So I can build an FOL algebra using the
two statements as separately represented facts {S0, S1} without reaching any
conclusions about them at all. The very first thing I sense is the OR
condition S0 happened, S1 happened, other than that I know nothing else.
HTH,
-Rich